Surat Airport is located on Magdalla - Dumas Road towards the famous Dumas Beach on the South-West part of the city, approximately 13 kms from the city center.

The Airport currently serves Surat city with a population of 6 million and serves the South Gujarat region with an overall population of 12 million, Besides the intrastate connectivity provided by a Surat based NSOP, the city has had limited air connectivity, for very many long years.

The new airport terminal was inaugurated in the year 2009 and licensed by the DGCA as aerodrome for public use in 2011 as per the ICAO guidelines. Air India, the National carrier had started its operation since May, 2007 and remained the sole service provider to STV, until February, 2012 when SpiceJet a Private LCC, provided the desperately needed additional connectivity. 

However, the service of SpiceJet came to an abrupt end; when one of the aircraft hit a wandering buffalo on the runway while take-off resulting in immediate & indefinite termination of service in late 2014.

Although with scanty connectivity provided by Scheduled Airlines, the airport otherwise has been patronized regularly by Charter Services of MNCs from Hazira, VVIP Movements(PMOI), State Government(CMGUJ), Air force(C 17 Globe master), Indian Navy, Coast Guard, Heliport for Pvt. operators, Pilot Training Academy and lately by a Non Scheduled Operator - Ventura Air Connect, which is a NSOP based out of Surat.

Taking in view severe ramifications of the buffalo-hit on the runway, major renovation and up-gradation work was taken up in 2015 and in a span of three painstaking years, remarkable developments took place since then. The airport renovation consisting of periphery walls, to runway repair & extension, aero-bridge installation etc.; pending few tasks almost all of the measures for a safe & secure functioning of the airport, were more or less accomplished.

With the commercial success of the sole Air India service and the up-gradation at the Airport, apparently became a reason for SpiceJet to relaunch its services in March, 2017. The airport since then has witnessed tremendous growth to more than double the footfall in passenger traffic in a year-on-year comparison. This encouraged SpiceJet and it added Five more destinations connecting with Surat in a short span of 3 months of its relaunch, and Two more destinations been added in December, 2017. So much so that even an additional floor level had to be created in a few months to accomodate the foot fall with the number of Increased flights.

This sudden unexplored business potential grabbed the attention of other airlines, which had been playing shy until now, to provide air connectivity to Surat, but soon came out of the closet to explore the neglected potential of the city.
With the smell of profits in the air, other airlines overtly or covertly started showing interest of getting a piece of this pie. A few of the Airlines visited the city & did their due-diligence to announce their allegiance to the city. To the extent that Air India Express even 'expressed' its willingness to fly the city, Internationally by starting Surat - Dubai flights in the coming months.

Due to the long delay in completion of the extension and repair work of the runway and bureaucratic delay in approvals for Customs & Immigration by the competent authorities, the progress of new connectivity had come to an enforced standstill.

Onnce with the runway work fully accomplished, Customs & Immigration Service staffing allotted, it was now for the wait for the Airport Security to be taken over by the CISF, as the airport's security was still under Gujarat State Police. 

With all that achieved the Airport was now considered set for Limited International operations (Custims Notified Airport) finally by April, 2018 instead of earlier anticipated date of November, 2017.

Meanwhile parallelly the Cargo Terminal work had been awarded and was expected to be completed by late 2018.

In a short span of about a year the passenger traffic had crossed the One Million mark & the need of expansion grew even more prominent. Fortunately a second phase of development work was announced in early 2019 and the work was to be completed in 2 years. However it did not happen so for mostly due to snail paced development work during the pandemic years, taking more than five years to show shape. Although there are some major pending works of this five year old holistic development yet to be completed, with the completion of New Integrated Building Terminal being added into operation in December, 2023, there came a sudden & pleasant surprise. An Official anouncement was made on 25th December 2023 of Surat Airport being granted a full fledged International Airport status.

This was The Moment of the milestone being achieved for the city and for SIAC, confirming to the vision of the Surat International Airport Community, becoming a reality after almost 15 years of keeping the dreams & hopes alive for the Citizens of Surat.

Armed with a full fledged International status and a capacity to handle more than three Million passengers annually, Surat International Airport has now finally gotten wings to literally fly over the seven seas and is all set for Connecting the World with Surat with an aim to achieve to be the finest serving airport with the state-of-the-art infrastructure & being among the top 30 busy Airports in the country.